In a rolling field in the Annapolis Valley, the ground in a row of vines is full of carbonized wooden fragments.
That substance without pretensions of carbonized material does not seem much, but the substance similar to coal is a tool that scientists and farmers expect waste to turn the waste into a tool to improve soil health and store long -term carbon.
“Instead of losing everything in the atmosphere, we can paste … that carbon on the ground,” said Vicky Lévesque, a scientist research scientist and agricultural Canada in Kentville.
Lévesque’s work is only one of the projects underway while scientists and companies in Nueva Scotia explore how a material called Biochar can be used and produced in the province. She says it is an opportunity to support producers while fighting climate change.
Biochar can improve water and nutrient retention in the soil
Lévesque is testing biochar in vines in 11 sites in the valley to see how carbon kidnapping, soil biodiversity, plant growth and nutrient leaching. The experiment will run for four years.
“Talk to the grape industry, [they] See some problems in your vineyards, such as soil compaction, nitrogen loss and also water retention, so … we brought that idea to try biochar in your vineyards. “
The biochar is made by heating organic materials, usually wood, but also crop waste, manure and even wastewater, at temperatures as high as 1,000 C. that process, known as pyrolysis, occurs without oxygen, which means that the materials do not burn, but are transformed into a gas and an almost completely solid material.
It is believed that this material benefits the ground in several ways.
Biochar is full of small pores. These pores provide habitat for beneficial microorganisms; A tablespoon of biochar can have as much surface as a football field.
Biochar also retains the water, up to 27 grams per gram of biochar, which allows it to sustain and release water over time, and angry soils, helping the roots to penetrate.
Atlantic Canada’s freezing cycle makes soils lose fertilizer nitrogen to the atmosphere, cost farmers money and produce greenhouse gas emissions. The experiments suggest that Biochar can retain that nitrogen, reducing emissions and the use of fertilizers.
Biochar is almost 90 percent carbon, since roasting without oxygen prevents carbon in wood from being released to the atmosphere.
The soils in the Atlantic of Canada now lose half a ton carbon per year, mainly through tillage. Biochar could help reverse that.
Dalhouse’s assistant professor, Sonil Nanda, who is investigating the production and use of biochar in applications that range from agriculture to medicine, said Biochar can help Canada progress in the objectives of climate change, especially when material is used that otherwise would be wasted.
“Canada can be a leader in taking advantage of these underutilized waste that comes from the agricultural sector, the forestry sector, municipal solid waste, forest fire wood,” he said. “Biochar is one of those integral components … that will help us move towards net zero.”
Lévesque said that a current barrier to adoption is the cost: the experiment is to use 10 tons of biochar per hectare, which adds up to approximately $ 10,000. Another is the availability of Biochar, since there are currently no large -scale producers in the Atlantic of Canada.
A Halifax headquarters is working to address that.
Aserraderos in the province currently do not have a destination for their residual wood, the remaining material that remains after the usable wood is cut, due to the closure of the northern pulp.
If that material is dropped or burned in an open fire, “that is at risk of returning to the form of CO2 after the tree worked for 50 or 100 years to turn it into carbon,” said Don Leblanc, president of RDA Atlantic Inc.
He said that the accumulation of giant wood chips and chips in Sawmills in the Atlantic of Canada “is not a great environmental circumstance.”
Instead, RDA proposes to convert that material into a biochar.
RDA has been working with a reactor design developed and patented in Poland; That reactor, which can weigh up to 40 tons, produces biochar in large quantities. RDA is trying to take technology to North America, and Leblanc said they are currently in conversations with a sawmill in Nueva Scotia to install a reactor to produce Biochar.
Meanwhile, RDA is selling biochar produced in Poland locally, as a way of raising awareness among the public in this province.
“As the market accumulates for the product, we will be in a better position to justify the construction of the first production installation in the Atlantic of Canada,” Leblanc said.
Biochar is also emerging as a solution to dead wood and another vegetation produced by climate change.
Joe Lewis, co -founder of the Bioburn Pros company, did not intend to start producing biochar. His company began in 2023 to help people and communities get rid of the lots of vegetation created by natural disasters.
Bioburn pros offers a way to deal with wood waste produced by hurricanes and forest fires, using portable burners that can tow or walk to a site, and quickly reduce wood to ashes and biochar.
“It was not until we found this business model that made sense and we started looking for it that we started learning, Oh, one of our by -products is actually, you know, a valuable resource itself,” Lewis said.
Lewis said the company is seeing a growing interest in Biochar, and is investigating a burner design that is specifically destined to produce more biochar than its existing model. In the future, Lewis imagines producing biochar as part of disaster preparation, when communities are taking measures such as eliminating vegetation to prevent forest fires.
“These communities need to deal with all the residual of that project, [and] We can return all the residual coal to the community so that they can use it at home. “
A Nova Scotian is already using biochar at home.
Rick Ketcheson grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan, but spent his career as an engineer. When he retired, he was interested in soil health and sustainable agriculture.
During the last nine years, Biochar has been producing in an oven in its property in Annapolis Royal, using waste wood from a nearby sawmill and putting the material in its garden. The process is intensive at work, Ketcheson said, but the benefits are clear.
“I know that if I maintain a good microbiome and include biochar on the ground that I will have healthy plants, and it works. I have some tremendous results.”
When it comes to encouraging a broader adoption of Biochar, which the UN has said can Increase soil and fertility carbon kidnapping – In Nova Scotia, Ketcheson believes that a variety of options can help make it a viable tool for Nova Scotians. Meanwhile, he feels encouraged for growing interest.
“We need systems that work for small scale that people can do on their own farms or in the community … as well as the production of medium and industrial level. So I think again that it is about diversity.”
